


all of your b-films

by Ruriruri



Category: KISS (US Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 19:22:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18505444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruriruri/pseuds/Ruriruri
Summary: “Don’t kid yourself about the guys. They want the old days back as much as we do. Maybe even more.” Nine years after Peter leaves KISS, Ace unexpectedly joins him for a part of his club tour.





	all of your b-films

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to KittieMitties for the initial idea and inspiration, and for showing me a sweet picture of Peter and Ace that sparked everything else.
> 
> Thanks to the boys for the smiles, the warmth, and the photo.

“Morning, man.” Ace closes his eyes, rubs them with one hand—he looks like a kid when he does that, looks almost innocent. There’s never been anything innocent about Ace Frehley. Not since Peter’s known him, at least. Known him. Fucking known him.

 Peter shifts, forcing himself to sit up in bed as the old aches and pains rush through his bones. It hadn’t been a good crowd last night. The club circuit, lousy as hell even on its best days, isn’t where Peter wants to be, but it’s where he’s ended up. Paul’s there, too, though he’s booking the clubs out of his own vanity and desperation to tour, a fact that amuses the hell out of Peter—both of them going it alone and trying to pump up a crowd that hasn’t been around for either of them in almost ten years. The only thing really separating Peter from anyone still in KISS is the balance in his bank account.

The only thing separating Peter from Ace is the carton of orange juice Ace is pushing to his lips. Peter takes a gulp, but Ace keeps holding the carton up anyway, so he manages a few more swallows before Ace, satisfied, sets the carton down.

 “Doing all right there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m doing all right.”

“Good.” There’s the familiar pop of a beer can. Peter doesn’t question where Ace got it when this hotel isn’t even classy enough to offer a minibar, just watches Ace down half the can in three swallows flat before he continues. “You got this room booked for tonight, too, don’t you?”

“Yeah. The gig’s only an hour away.”

The corners of Ace’s mouth perk up.

“You wanna have a cheerleader? I think I did pretty good there last night, even if I didn’t have the skirt.”

“I want another lead guitarist, is what I want.” Peter laughs, dryly, then adds, “I mean it. You were something else back there.”

He had been, too. Just like the good old days. No, better. Just like the days when they’d rented out ballrooms. Before Ace’d got on coke but way, way after he’d started drinking. Back when he thought he was untouchable and that  _ made _ him untouchable, like a gulped-down placebo. He’d been good enough to make Peter want to do better, want to pound those skins with a fervor and a fever. Peter had watched the audience, those loaded expressions on their faces, how they shifted like kaleidoscope beads when he started bearing down, really bearing down. Laying into those drums, unleashing something he hadn’t had in eleven years now. Course, he was paying for it this morning, arms feeling like cement blocks, but Ace… Ace was all right. Ace could’ve played the whole damn show and been all right.

Ace just shrugs.

“’S nothing. I wanted to. Figured while I’m in town, y’know.” There’s not the ease to Ace’s words that used to be there. There’s an edge, an anxiousness. Peter hates to hear it. Hates to hear it because he’s heard it so much from his own throat. Ace shouldn’t have to worry like that. Should be spending his time in his recording studio, or helping Monique out with the multiplication tables, anything, just anything, but Peter knows damn well Ace’s time is split between when he has his coke and his pain pills and his booze and when he’s trying to get more of all three.

“The hell’re you doing in town, anyway? This isn’t L.A. Isn’t even fucking Fremont.”

Ace quirks a small smile.

“Well, I thought you knew, Peter.”

Peter shakes his head.

But Ace can’t be here for any solid reason. Nothing out in some nowhere California suburb. Nothing he could want out here. Even a drug contact wouldn’t make sense. Neither of them can get the good stuff anymore, the pure shit that Ezrin used to pile on the studio desks like an early snowfall. The old dealers are long gone. Ace doesn’t really want to shove out the albums these days—he’s just looking to fund his binges. He’s doing magazine interviews, news spreads. Tapping the vein of one twenty-something KISS Army vet at a time, hoping they’ll buy whatever he’s selling out of pure nostalgia for being twelve and pimpled.

Peter’s not much better. He’s not much better, but he’s trying. Sometimes he’s trying. He winces in pain as he reaches for the orange juice carton, taking another sip, remembering, faintly, that in Europe they just drank it at room temperature. The milk, too. No, no, the milk was warm. They acted like ice was a foreign concept. The girls, though—the girls spoke the same language all over. Legs spread like peanut butter across a piece of bread. Money changed, races, nationalities changed, but the groupies had never seemed any different. All of them just as eager to suck his cock or let him fuck them or both, depending on mood and inclination.

It hadn’t become a creature comfort for Peter the way it had for Gene. It hadn’t become something he needed, just something he liked. A fringe benefit a wife back home had never kept him from enjoying. Ace, either. Ace had told him once that Jeanette understood and Peter had laughed at him.

“Lydia understands, too. She understands enough that she tries following me every fucking tour—really thinks I’m gonna leave her—”

“No, no, I mean she really understands.”

“About the girls?”

“Not just that.” Ace’s face had scrunched up, just briefly, and Peter glanced away. Hadn’t pushed for more, but from then on, the knowledge was there, right there. From then on, he couldn’t so much as give Jeanette a hug without thinking about it. Feeling sorry for her, even, for taking it, for  _ understanding _ , whatever that shit really meant. Ace was too much of an open book. Every lousy thing about him ended up tugged to the surface eventually, like an oil spill cresting over ocean waves. He couldn’t hide things. Didn’t have the heart to.

Right now he’s watching Ace finish off the beer—behind him, he can see the remnants of a six-pack Ace left on the table near the closet.

“You wanna go on with me again tonight?” Wouldn’t even be fifty people there, but they’d go nuts. For Ace they’d go nuts. “Just a couple songs… ‘Black Diamond,’ ‘Hard Luck Woman,’ what do you say?”

“Aw, Peter, whoever you got as your lead guitarist is gonna be pissed if I show up again.”

“Nah, he’ll just ask for your autograph.” In fact, last night he had asked for it, secondhand, too shy to ask Ace directly _. Could you, could you get him to write his name on the setlist for me _ , he’d asked, and Peter had honestly meant to, but then another round of drinks had found its way backstage and he’d been useless again. “C’mon. Old time’s sake, Ace.”

 “Maybe.”

“Don’t maybe me, Ace, either say you’re gonna do it or say you’re not—”

“Let’s get out of here first.” Ace sets the beer down on the nightstand, and then he flicks it, frowning as it topples over. There isn’t a single drop draining out from the lid. He holds his hand out like an afterthought. “I’ll drive.”

“Fuck, no. I’ll drive.”

“Peeeeeterrrr,” Ace drawls, then giggles. “C’mon. One more car crash and we both get our names in the paper.”

“One more car crash and I’m down another life.”

“You got at least four more.”

“I’m driving, man.”

“All right, all right.” Ace shambles to his feet properly, yanking on last night’s jeans and t-shirt. Another nostalgia piece. This one’s got Debbie Harry in all her blonde bombshell glory silkscreened across the front. Debbie’s still taking care of her man, or so claim the tabloids, but Blondie’s long gone. Another fucking shame. Peter takes awhile longer to get dressed himself, lugging out his suitcase from under the bed and pulling out a fresh t-shirt and slacks. Ace watches him get dressed, which ought to rankle Peter more than it does, ought to make him snap out that he’s not some cripple, that he just hurts sometimes, that’s all, but that vague concern on Ace’s face stops him as he zips up his slacks and stuffs his keys and wallet in his pocket. "You ready?"

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”

They listen to the car radio, same as they’ve always done. Ace switches stations constantly, beer in one hand, the dial in the other, like he’s trying to hone in on a signal he can’t find. The heavy metal crap’s oversaturating the market. It’s not like it was back in KISS, back when they weren’t even solid on the word for it. There’s no soul to it now. No hunger. Just scrawny kids with shitty hair bitching about money and fame they don’t even fucking have. Peter keeps the radio on anyway. The wheel feels familiar in his hands as he turns off on an exit, directionless, aimless. Traffic’s not so terrible when he doesn’t know where they’re going, when they’re passing all sorts of kitschy shops and storefronts and letting mohawked teenagers cross the street in front of them. Traffic’s not so terrible at all.

They ran out of the old topics last night. Wives and kids. So now they’re onto talking about Ace’s new album, coming out later this year—maybe, maybe. Peter’d done some of the drumming for it, even some of the backing vocals. There’s some good stuff there.

“It’s all timing,” Ace says, dryly. “They’re working on another album, too, so if I can get mine out just before or just after—”

“You’re better than that.”

“’M not better than that.”

 Peter doesn’t answer. Peter doesn’t answer, and Ace doesn’t defend himself, just turns the radio dial again, finds an oldies station, and soon, there’s “Get Off of My Cloud,” slamming in as irreverently as ever. Jagger singing about parking tickets. Peter doesn’t even know what Jagger’s singing about these days, what album he’s promoting now, but he knows he still has an audience for all Brian’s been dead in his pool for twenty years now.

“They’re still really good guys, y’know.” Ace is conversational, his sneakered feet tapping out of time against the rental’s dash. “Eric and Bruce are nice. I don’t wish them anything bad.”

“I didn’t say I did—”

“Gene and Paul, too.”

“Okay, now, that’s bullshit, Ace.”

“It’s not! You know it’s not, man.”

“Maybe you don’t wish them anything bad, but you’re not telling me they’re good guys.”

“You know ’em as well as I do, Peter.” Ace exhales. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter watches him lean forward and retie his shoelace as he talks, the beer can nestled between his thighs. “Paul’s always been a nervous wreck. You get past that and he’s all right.”

“You got past it, you mean. You used to blow him on tour.”

“You’re damn right I did.” Ace laughs and takes another gulp of beer. “Never did calm him down any, but—”

“Did you fuck him, too?” Peter’s not sure why he’s bothering to ask when it doesn’t matter. Ace’s list of conquests never got too extensive. He’d always done far more champagne and coke than groupies.

“Paulie? Nah. Don’t think he was up to it.”

“What about Gene?”

Ace blinks, then laughs again.

“Fuck, no. He’s an opportunist, but he’s not all that queer. You know that.” Ace pauses. Peter can feel his stare, brief but way too knowing, given how drunk he is, on his face. “You jealous, Cat?”

Peter snorts and changes the radio station.

“Why the fuck would I be? I don’t care where your dick’s been.”

“Dunno. Pretty late in the day to be asking me all that, is all.” Ace takes another swallow of beer.

“Just curious.” The words hang in the air for a couple seconds too long, and Peter clears his throat. “Figured it might make it feel like a high school reunion or some shit. Hearing ’em on the radio and thinking,  _ Jesus, I fucked that bastard _ .”

Ace crooks a grin.

“You think that about me?”

“Maybe if I heard you more.”

Ace’s expression shifts briefly before that spaced-out, dopey look slips right back on like a baby’s bib. He doesn’t say anything for a good half a mile, doesn’t even hum along to the radio, which makes Peter a little on edge, but then Ace finally starts up again.

“Don’t kid yourself about the guys. They want the old days back as much as we do. Maybe even more.”

 “You’re a fucking liar. Keep going.”

 “You ever watch their music videos?” Ace closes his eyes and laughs. “Christ, poor Paulie. I haven’t seen anyone that desperate since Carter tried to get reelected.”

“Good.” Peter reaches over for the beer in Ace’s hand. Ace doesn’t even blink before lifting it and tipping it to Peter’s lips, not that it shuts out his next comment. “They never did any better than ‘Beth.’ They never will. Nobody’s gonna let ’em forget that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Ace lowers the beer. It’s as good a signal as any.

“Where’d you want to go, Ace?”

“Mmm. I think it used to be just over… oh, change lanes, change lanes. There, yeah. Take a left.”

Peter obediently makes the turn.

“You sure about this?”

“’S an adventure, Pete.” Ace cracks another grin. “All right. Pull in over there.”

“The bakery?”

“Yeah.”

“Ace, I can’t parallel park for shit.”

Ace laughs and fumbles over Peter, one leg on his lap, the other straddling the gear shift. Peter lets out a litany of curses, but Ace just keeps on, pushing Peter’s hands off the steering wheel and managing to park the rental—perfectly—amid a chorus of honking horns.

 “You crazy fucker!”

“We got in, didn’t we? C’mon.”

“I can’t come on with you on top of me, asshole!”

Another snort.  Ace’s hair, plenty dark enough, but limper than it used to be, brushes against Peter’s face for a second as he climbs off him and steps out of the car, holding the door open for him. Peter stumbles out, breathing still a little heavy, following Ace into the dingy bakery.

Inside, the counters are still laden with early morning pastries. Doughnuts and cinnamon rolls and muffins laid out beneath the glass. Some cookies and chocolates up top. Peter cocks his head, wondering what Ace wants, resigning himself to cleaning up the rental after. But Ace doesn’t even spare the pastries a glance before striding over to the counter.

“You got any white cakes?”

The counter girl nodded.

 “With white icing… nah, nah, it’s not for a birthday. Don’t write on it. It—” Ace pauses, glances briefly at Peter, furtive look on his face. “Didja have the tiered kind?”

 “The tiered kind?”

 “Fuck, gimme a pencil, I’ll just draw it.” Ace’s brow furrows. For a second Peter thinks Ace is still talking to him, but then he sees the girl hand him a pen and a napkin. Peter starts to look over as Ace draws, but Ace just curls his free hand around the napkin, like a kid hiding his answers. He pushes the napkin over to the girl at the counter without another word.

“I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning. You got my name, right?”

“Yeah.” The girl’s staring at the napkin. Peter recognizes that expression, that dawning look. It’s not one he gets these days outside of the clubs. Sometimes not even then. “You were in that band. KISS.”

Ace just nods and tosses his arm over Peter’s shoulders before they head toward the door.

“Yeah. He was, too.”

\--

Ace has Peter stop at a couple more places after that. Lunch at a soup and sandwich shop. Twenty minutes or so at a record store, Ace flipping through the rock magazines, brow furrowed. He’s looking for an advertisement for his upcoming album. Peter, meanwhile, skims the teenage girl shit, stuff like  _ Tiger Beat _ and  _ Rock Scene _ , snorting at the pinups. Ratt grimacing. Jon Bon Jovi shirtless. And, inevitably, there’s Paul with his fly unzipped and his tanktop askew, with Gene standing sullenly next to him, neither even trying to smile for the camera.

“Look on the back side,” Ace says absently. Peter flips the page, half-surprised to see his own face staring back. His and Ace’s and Paul’s and Gene’s. It’s from the Japan concerts. It’s from when they sold out the Budokan five nights in a row.

“Jesus Christ, doesn’t this shit piss you off?”

Ace shrugs and doesn’t answer.

“I’ve been out almost ten years and they’re still getting every drop of use from me they can!”

“Hey, now. Marilyn Monroe’s been dead almost thirty years and she still sells pinups.” Ace pauses. “Course, you’re not quite that cute, but—”

“It’s fucking trashy.”

“You’d be more pissed off if you weren’t in there at all, man. It’s a good picture.” Ace leans over, tracing Peter’s face on the magazine spread with his fingernail. “It’s a real good picture.”

“You’re an idiot,” Peter responds on idle automatic. Ace laughs again as Peter creases the magazine cover before he sets it back on the stand

“They don’t have the ad in yet. ’S all right, though.” Ace cocks his head. “When’s your show start?”

 “Eight.”

 “Then we got time.”

Peter almost expects him to ask for the keys again, but he doesn’t. There’s the familiar, brief clasp of Ace’s hand against his arm as they head out of the music store, too. Peter feels like an urchin, walking out of these shitty little shops without buying anything, when ten years ago, he’d been worth ten million. There’s nothing he wants here, but that doesn’t matter. He can’t help feeling fleeced. He can’t help feeling cheated.

Once they’re back in the car, Ace is hopeless as usual. He’d stashed another beer in the backseat floorboard this morning, apparently, and now he’s swilling it down. He’s cracking jokes and making passes as if he has to anymore, as if he really ever had to, while Peter tries to keep his eyes on the road. It’s not until Ace strokes his arm that his concentration really starts to falter, and falter badly, and by that time, they’re almost at the hotel.

Fucking around is thoughtless as ever. Peter pulls into the parking lot and they’re scrambling in the backseat before too long, but something about it feels pathetic now, like chasing that first cocaine high with the honest hope of catching it again. The scars from ’74 aren’t so bad on Ace’s face as they ought to be, but the lines sinking into his forehead and around his jaw aren’t just vague insinuations these days. They don’t keep Peter from kissing him. They don’t keep Peter from wanting him.

“Let’s go in,” Peter finally says, armrest digging into his back, half breathless for all that they’ve only been groining around. Clothes not even off yet. Ace’s hand is wormed down beneath Peter’s slacks, but he hasn’t managed to get more than a few fondles in, and he’s been too damn lazy to even unzip him. “I’m not cleaning this shit up after.”

“Who says there’ll be a mess?”

 “There always is.”

“All right, all right,” and they stumble out together, Peter having to hold him steady. The hotel receptionist doesn’t blink, but Peter could swear he feels her stare on them both. Two middle-aged guys faltering around at only three in the afternoon. She’s got to be judging them, but Peter barely gives a fuck by the time they’re back in the room, sinking onto clean sheets and making each other ordinary again.

It’s better in the hotel. It’s a lot better. Ace never gets desperate for it even when he’s drunk; there’s this eerie, canny awareness to him that makes Peter wonder. Peter presses a couple kisses up Ace’s neck, trailing to meet his chin and finally his lips, remembering the sticky taste of black lipstick and the burn of first-rate champagne. He can’t leave a smudge on him with both their faces bare, but sometimes he wants to. Right now, he wants to. Ace, gasping beneath him, pistons his hips eagerly.

They used to keep it going forever. Usually there’d be a girl between them, sometimes two or three and they’d entertain those girls first, hotel overflowing with booze and blow and the pungent smell of sex. Three in the morning and they’d still be at it, the warm, wet heat molding skin to skin, and fuck, wasn’t it sordid, wasn’t it rotten, except when Ace would smile or crack a joke or—or some stupid shit like that, and yank the whole sorry lie out from under his feet. Remind him, crazily, that under the greasepaint, he was just some guy from Brooklyn who’d gotten lucky. Peter didn’t think Ace meant to do it. It didn’t even make him mad to be torn out of the reverie; in fact, there was something weirdly refreshing about it. Every tour had leeched a little more out of shy, cautious Paul until he’d all but replaced himself with that prima donna Starchild; every tour had hardened Gene up from a workaholic Kelly girl to an overbearing, self-righteous bastard. Ace had drowned in coke and booze, sure, but at least there was always something about him Peter could recognize. Something Peter could come back to.

Could keep coming back to, even now. Peter leans over, licks absently at the sweat beading and dripping on Ace’s face as he yanks down his jeans, yanks off his shirt. The rest of him’s softened up, but Ace’s legs are still skinny as ever, thighs twitching when Peter reaches for his cock and slowly eases into a steady rhythm around him. Ace paws lazily at Peter’s fly a few times, and at first Peter bats his hand back, until Ace’s fingers get a little more meaningful, the dreamy, dazed look in his eyes fading, and then Peter lets Ace unzip him and start stroking his dick in turn.

“Remember?” Ace says, all of a sudden.

“Remember what?”

“That first time. That first time, with Sweet Connie.” Ace isn’t breathing much heavier yet for how hard he is. No surprise. Peter had never gotten a great look at him from the drumkit, but any guy who’d get off onstage every night he could and still manage to stumble through choruses and encores afterwards had something,  _ some _ kind of stamina holding him up. “Back in ’76. She was trying to be coy, y’know, like she hadn’t fucked every rockstar who’d come through Little Rock…”

“Yeah, I remember.” Connie had been a badge of honor. A sign of making it. Biggest whore in the whole damn South and yet they’d all wanted a piece of her. She’d taken turns with KISS, going from bed to bed like a demented circuit rider. “She dove right down under the covers like she was bobbing for apples.”

Ace snickers.

“Yeah, and then I got her outta the way…”

“I didn’t even know you’d switched at first.” They’d both been down there, after all. Ace had been pulling Peter’s toes, giggling like a Bond villain on acid as Peter spewed at him to knock that shit off while he was getting blown. Then there’d been a little rustling, a little mumbling, and then Connie’s mouth was off his dick and Ace’s was there instead, mouth tight and hot and wet around him. Didn’t feel any different. Didn’t panic when Connie popped back up for air and planted a hard kiss right against his mouth, confirming everything. Didn’t panic at all, just peeled back the covers to meet a pair of sleepy brown eyes, still half-covered in eyeshadow and greasepaint. Ace hadn’t stopped. Just given him a thumbs-up.

Peter had given him one back.

“Didn’t you? Nngh, thought my… technique might… might be distinctive…” Ace trails. That glazed look in his eyes is getting a little worse with every shove of his hips as Peter’s fingers rub against his dick. “Fuck, you’re not gonna stop at handjobs today, are you? Figured you were a little more romantic…”

“Turn around, then.”

 “Nah, nah, just get over here,” and then Peter, grumbling, stops jerking Ace off long enough to shift and close that last lonesome distance between them. Straddling him like he’d done a hundred times before, easy. Easy. Ace slides his hand down, starts stroking their cocks together in an smooth rhythm while Peter shudders above him. His dick’s throbbing almost painfully against Ace’s, precum slickening Ace’s grip, always so casual, so relaxed. Only Ace could ever make fucking around seem almost languid and still manage to drive Peter insane with it. Every needy drive, every urgent breath he presses against Ace’s skin, the needy roll of his hips, craving more pressure, more intensity—every bit of it doesn’t seem to do a damn thing until Peter grasps at Ace’s hair, pulling roughly, until he presses a few more kisses to his neck and cheek and mouth. Until Peter’s teeth catch on Ace’s earring and tug, making Ace groan, turn his head from side to side.

“Fuck, Peter…”

Peter watches the focus fade in and out of Ace’s expression like a flickering lightbulb. There’s something different about it than usual, something he can’t place. Like something’s bothering him. But he’s close. Too close to play around anymore. Ace’s strokes get more purposeful, free hand clasping Peter’s shoulder, leaving faint pink indents among the freckles, and Ace comes only a couple seconds later with a quick jerk and a curse, eyes sliding shut, grip loosening, come mingling with the scent of sweat in the air, all over both their stomachs and cocks. Peter half-expects Ace to finish stroking him off like usual, but instead he lets go entirely.

 “Mm, just use me, you wanna?”

“You’re so fucking lazy,” but there’s no rancor in Peter’s words, none at all, as he repositions his painfully hard dick between Ace’s thighs. Ace smiles and squeezes them tight around him, enveloping Peter’s cock in a soft, slick heat that’s so easy to thrust and grind against.

 “’S a nice view. Always is.”

\--

Ace plays for him that night after all. “Black Diamond” and “Hard Luck Woman” both. He’s not on, really on, the way he was the night before, but that doesn’t really matter. The crowd still goes insane. Some guy, some fan comes up to Peter afterwards, asks if they’re gonna tour together,  _ really _ tour together, the two of them, and Peter hasn’t felt so warm in years.

“It isn’t the same without you guys,” he confesses, and maybe he’s drunk, but Peter doesn’t care. It feels good to hear. It feels good to be wanted. “KISS, I mean.”

“It’s not,” Peter says, and he waits, wondering when he’s expected to give those stupid pat answers just to guarantee Gene’ll throw some backing vocals his way next album, or Paul’ll toss in a song from his discard pile. Peter hasn’t been playing their game over the last couple years and the last dozen interviews, and he knows it rankles the hell out of them, Paul especially, to still be dodging questions on why he left nearly a decade on. Has to be hurting Eric’s feelings, too, but… well. The only crime Eric committed was showing up for an audition, but on Peter’s lowest days, that’s crime enough.

The guy doesn’t push for more, though, just leaves after a handshake. No opportunity to splatter his bitterness in front of an eager audience. Instead it’s just his band again—a band it’s bleeding him to keep—and Ace, sunk down in his seat, gulping down champagne like water. Peter hasn’t been keeping track of Ace’s drinks, but he has been paying attention to Ace’s demeanor. He’d autographed all the setlists, sloppily. Even a couple napkins. Added a star onto his name sometimes, the playing card others, like he’d forgotten his own moniker. Peter only knows because he’d signed them right after.

But what’s really concerning is that he’s not cutting up with the band. None of the half-remembered jokes, not even the old drunken bullshit about aliens and Jendell. No, Ace is just being quiet. A lousy sign if ever there was one. Peter sighs, checks his watch—half an hour since he had a drink of his own, which is downright impressive, and good enough for him to opt to lean in, nose brushing against Ace’s hair, not even half on accident.

“I’ll take you back to the hotel.”

“Peter, ’s fine—"

“You’re gonna pass out. I’ll take you back.”

“Oh, the fuck do you really care, man?”

“Jesus, Ace, just c’mere—”

“No, I mean it, I really mean it.” Ace takes another swallow of champagne, then pushes the glass down the table. “Always figured I knew you better than anybody. Always figured I knew what you wanted.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I mean…” Ace exhales, “Christ, Petey, you  _ still _ got Gene’s bass. Sentimental as fuck. You can’t tell me you don’t know.”

“Don’t bullshit me. What do you mean, I don’t know?”

Ace’s eyes narrow. He grabs his arm and gets up abruptly, half-lugging Peter out of the chair.

“I ain’t gonna say all this shit in front of your band.”

Any other time, that would’ve rankled the saboteur in him. Would’ve made Peter want to demand Ace say exactly what he had to say right now, in front of God and the band and whoever the hell else cared to listen in. His pulse is already up higher than it needs to be when he takes a good look, a really good look, up at Ace’s face, those odd, dark eyes that always saw too much, the purse of those lips that he’d tried to kiss to bruising only hours before. The way his mouth’s starting to twitch down.

He’s not holding it together. Unbelievably, Ace isn’t holding it together.

“C’mon, then,” Peter grumbles out, and leads him out of the club and back to the rental the way he has two dozen times before. The drive back to the hotel is almost unbearable. Ace is quiet, mostly, for the hour it takes. Never offers any apologies or explanation, just changes the radio station every so often. Once Peter steals a glance to the side just to find that he’s passed out—but he jerks back awake when Peter makes too sharp a turn on an exit.

“You think I came clear over to fucking California for the hell of it?” he says softly, finally, after Peter pulls into the hotel parking lot.

“Figured it might be for the album. Figured you had somebody you wanted to see.”

“Only showed up for you.” In the dim light of the streetlamps, crossing over from the lot to the hotel entrance, Ace rubs his neck like he’s feeling around for a choker that isn’t there. He’s not stumbling quite so badly now. Peter’s seen him so much worse and still coherent. “I keep up, y’know? I keep up.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” They all keep up. They all fucking keep up. Gene knows what Paul’s doing knows what Ace’s doing knows what Peter’s doing, and vice-versa, all around the bend. Any given month.  _ Any _ given month. That obsessive, incestuous circle of awareness. That underhanded vibe to following each other, endlessly following each other, through magazines and MTV, scattered columns and radio ads. He doesn’t understand it for all that he’s a part of it.

“You know why I came by, don’t you? Pete, don’t you?”

Peter knows. Maybe, deep down, he’s known the entire time.

\--

The next morning, Peter gets up early. Watches Ace sleep for a minute or two—he’ll be dead to the world way past check-out, if Peter doesn’t rouse him himself—but Peter doesn’t really mind. Another charge on a second-rate hotel isn’t the worst expense he’s dealt with over the last couple years. The days he had more money than God are gone, aren’t ever coming back, but he can afford this.

And he can afford a cake from that little bakery, even if he can’t parallel park over there. Three tiny tiers, white icing. Not terribly bigger than a baby’s cake, the kind the parents buy just so they can tape the kid wrecking it. No real decoration beyond the little piped-on stars surrounding each tier. No writing on it, either, not when the whole of it’s gone unsaid and barely-said for going on thirteen years now.

Thirteen years.

Peter gets back to the hotel with the cake box under one arm, fumbling with the key. Fumbling with the crappy little saucers and the plastic flatware and the plastic cups that’re all the kitchenette offers. Trying to make everything presentable, neatly arranged on a tray, the cake right there in the center. He pours what’s left of that orange juice carton into the cups. It’s not champagne, but it’ll do. It’ll do for today.

“Hey. Hey, Ace.”

Peter has to poke Ace to get him to as much as open his eyes. Ace grunts, tries to just roll back over, but Peter clamps down on one of his arms, yanks him into sitting up in bed.

“Ace, c’mon, man—”

He’s afraid Ace is going to slink back down into the covers just to spite him. He’d deserve it. Deserve it as much as he deserved anything he ever got from a bedmate or a wife. But then Ace catches sight of the tray and that tired expression shifts to something else. Something warm. Something that could be all right, whether or not they ever make it again.

“You picked up the cake.”

“Course I did.”

“Pete,” and there’s a heaviness to Ace’s tone that isn’t just from waking up, maybe a slight, unbelievable crack, “Pete, you didn’t have to—”

“I did.” Peter swallows. “Thirteen years. Hell of a long time to put up with me.”

“Aw, Pete, you’re not so bad—”

“Nah, I’m worse.” The smile’s tugging on his face, pulling up his cheeks. His heart’s beating too hard as he reaches over, brushes Ace’s mussed, wavy hair back behind his shoulder, hand lingering there. His arms haven’t hurt all morning. Not a twinge of pain. It might as well be ’76 again for how good he feels right now. “Hey, let’s get this cut, yeah?”

Ace’s fingers catch his. Lace around his, really, callused fingertips against the back of his hand, stroking his knuckles. Peter rubs them in return. Every movement seems lighter. Every moment seems softer. Like something he can believe in, like a gentler reality than he’s pictured in years, as Ace rests his head against his shoulder, and smiles.

“Yeah.”


End file.
